NHL sees TV subscriptions doubling

By Ben Klayman

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The National Hockey League expects to double subscriptions to the new U.S. arm of its television network over the next year, the commissioner of the North American sport said on Tuesday.

"We launched about a month ago and we're in somewhere around 12 million homes," Gary Bettman said at the Reuters Media Summit in New York. "I expect over the next year to see that number double, at least."

The NHL Network in the United States, launched in October, is accessible to about 80 million U.S. homes through such cable TV operators as Comcast Corp, Time Warner Cable Inc and Charter Communications and satellite operators like DirecTV Group Inc.

The network got its start in Canada in 2001 and has almost 1 million subscribers there. Bettman said some media companies he would not identify own stakes in the network.

Many U.S. sports leagues, including the National Football League, Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association, have launched their own TV networks as a way to boost revenue, improve league image and control their own content.

Bettman also said the NHL is content with the current number of teams in the league and has no plans to expand, contract or relocate teams to new cities.

Some analysts and observers of the sport have speculated that some of the teams in the U.S. South should be folded or relocated to Canada, where hockey is the most popular sport.

Bettman helped to stoke speculation in May when he said he was "intrigued" by the idea of returning to Canadian markets such as Winnipeg, where the NHL has had teams in the past. On Tuesday, he said that had been blown out of proportion.  Continued...